College Athletics NCAA Rules And Regulations
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began with a meeting called by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in October 1905. In attendance were the presidents and football coaches of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities.
Roosevelt sought, among other things, effective regulation of college football, which in 1905 had seen eighteen deaths on the gridirons of the relatively few institutions fielding teams to play the still new and already popular sport. The meeting resulted in rules changes in football and a meeting of a group of college presidents that would become the thirty-eight-member NCAA in 1906. By 2002 the voluntary association of more than 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities governed intercollegiate athletics competition in more than fifty sports for both men and women.
The NCAA rules govern specific games, the conditions for institutional participation in the NCAA and its sanctioned leagues and championships, the recruitment and participation of individual student athletes, and the consequences for breaching NCAA rules. The NCAA Manual, which is updated for each of the three divisions annually (and four times per year online), encompasses the rules for which member institutions and individuals are accountable. By 2002 the manual had expanded to more than 500 pages as new rules continue to be legislated and old ones revised or reinterpreted.
As of February 2002 the NCAA had thirty institutions on probation for major rules infractions (those providing an extensive recruiting or competitive advantage, reflecting a general disregard for the governing rules, or for recurring violations). In 2000, when twelve institutions were sanctioned for major infractions, the NCAA processed to completion a total of 2,024 cases involving secondary infractions, an infraction defined as “isolated or inadvertent in nature, provides or is intended to provide only a minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage, and does not include any significant recruiting inducement or extra benefit” (p.311).
The number and complexity of NCAA rules, and the possible consequences associated with their violation, have led most Division I institutions to employ at least one full-time professional staff member and to establish an institution-wide infrastructure solely devoted to assuring up-to-date knowledge and compliance with NCAA rules.
Further, the aspiring student athlete must attend to the rules as early as the ninth grade to be sure to achieve the necessary high school course work required to meet NCAA eligibility requirements.
Source, Structure, and Scope of NCAA Rules
The regulations for the governance of NCAA-sponsored intercollegiate athletics are encompassed in the NCAA Manual within thirty-three articles, which are organized in three sections: (1) the “Constitution,” which covers the principles for the conduct of intercollegiate athletics that provide the framework within which all subsequent rules must fit; (2) “Operating Bylaws,” which consist of principles and specific rules promoting the principles defined in the constitution; and (3) “Administrative Bylaws,” which define policies and procedures to implement legislative actions of the association, NCAA championships, association business, the enforcement program, and the athletics certification program.
Most rules and rule changes originate with recommendations from a number of internal committees, including the committee on infractions and the management council–a representative group of institutional and league athletics and faculty representatives of the specific division for revisions to the bylaws. However, depending on the nature of the proposed rule or revision, authority for rules and amendments may be delegated to the committee or may require approval beyond the management council.
The constitution provides a framework and defines limits for all subsequent regulations and future legislation. At its base is a two-part fundamental policy addressing the principle of amateurism, which is meant to assure that athletics is an integral part of the educational program, and the athlete is an integral part of the student body, thus establishing a “clear line of demarcation between intercollegiate athletics and professional sports” (NCAA, p. 1).
The second part of the policy addresses the individual and collective responsibilities of member institutions to apply and enforce legislation to assure competitive equity, including “basic athletics issues such as admissions, financial aid, eligibility and recruiting” (NCAA, p. 1). Beyond the fundamental policy and purpose of the organization, the constitution includes five additional articles addressing the conduct of intercollegiate athletics, NCAA membership, organizational structure, legislative authority and process, and institutional control of intercollegiate athletics. The constitution designates the chief executive officer of the institution (rather than the athletic director) as ultimately responsible “for the conduct of the intercollegiate athletics program and the actions of any board in control of that program” (NCAA, p. 49).
This responsibility is reinforced in the requirement that budgetary control falls to the institution within the realm of its normal budgetary procedures. The Constitution also spells out procedures for self-study and analysis to occur as part of a regular athletic certification process.
Perhaps most important, this section of the constitution spells out the institution’s responsibility for the acts of its staff members and any other individuals or agencies promoting the interests of the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program.
